Sweet. Sinful. Cold. Rich.

No, I'm not describing one of the Desperate Housewives; I'm talking about a wonderful dessert I made last weekend.

Chunks of tangy-sweet oranges dunked in thick cardamom-scented milk. This beauty of a sweet treat is called Kamlalebur Kheer and is a recipe shared by our favorite Bong Mom, Sandeepa. I would describe it as a delicious variation of basundi, with the fresh tangy taste of oranges contrasting with the cloying richness of thickened milk.

Milk + Condensed milk + Cardamom + Saffron + Oranges = Blissful Orange Basundi

To amplify the citrus notes, I added some orange zest, which perfumed the whole dessert with unmistakable orange flavor. I stirred in cardamom and saffron because I seem to be pathologically incapable of leaving these out of Indian desserts. The condensed milk was sweet enough for me and I did not need any extra sugar. In fact, the whole can of condensed milk was a bit too sweet for my taste; next time I will add a little less.

Here's how I made it, inspired by Sandeepa's recipe.

1. In a heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine ¾ to 1 can sweetened condensed milk (depending on sweetness desired), 4 C 2% milk and 4 T non-fat dry milk powder. One could use whole milk instead of low-fat milk and milk powder.
2. Heat the mixture and bring it to a near-boil, then simmer gently, stirring frequently, until it reduces by a third or so (I did this for about an hour).
3. Stir in ½ t cardamom powder and a few strands of saffron. Let the mixture cool to room temperature.
4. Take two oranges (I used Valencia) and wash them well. Zest the oranges, then section them.
5. Stir in the orange segments and orange zest into the milk mixture and chill thoroughly before serving. I think this yields about 6-8 reasonable portions; it is a rich and delicious dessert best enjoyed in small portions.

Sugary as can be, condensed milk is a very once-in-a-while purchase for me, but it is definitely a useful pantry item. With a can of condensed milk at hand, one can make
Quick Coconut Ladoos (condensed milk, coconut, cardamom),
Mango Kulfi (milk, flour, mango pulp, condensed milk),
Doodh Peda (butter, condensed milk, non-fat milk, cardamom, saffron)
Macaroons (fresh coconut, desiccated coconut, condensed milk, chocolate chips),
Chocolate Fudge (condensed milk, butter, chocolate chips, walnuts),
Dulce de Leche (milk, sugar, baking soda, vanilla),
Custard (condensed milk, sugar, milk, eggs, vanilla),
this very interesting Vietnamese drink (sparkling water, condensed milk, lime juice) and so many other "less is more" desserts.

Needless to say, this dessert is another entry for MBP: Less is More.

Sun-dried Goodness

Today's recipe is another one that is low on the number of ingredients but very high on flavor: Thakkali Thokku , a sun-dried tomato spread at Delectable Victuals. Sheela's creative touch in the kitchen and her enthusiasm for trying all kinds of global cuisines never fails to amaze me.

Sun-dried tomatoes + Dried chilli peppers + Fresh tomato = A finger-licking good Tomato spread

It is fresh tomato season here where I live, but I had a dozen little sun-dried tomatoes sitting in a jar from last winter's pantry stash that I was itching to use up. Sheela's recipe calls for dried chili peppers to add to the goodness (I have a stash of those too, a gift from a friend who brought them from New Mexico).

If you live someplace with plenty of sunshine and maybe a roof or courtyard to lay out stuff to dry, you can make your own sun dried tomatoes. The drying concentrates the sweet tomato goodness, and sun-dried tomatoes can be used to add wonderful flavor to a huge variety of recipes.

This is how I made the spread, inspired by Sheela's recipe

1. Place 10-12 sun-dried tomatoes and 2-4 dried chilli peppers in a bowl. Cover with boiling water and let them steep for 10-15 minutes.
2. Drain off the water and place the re-hydrated chillies and tomatoes into a food processor.
3. Add one chopped de-seeded fresh tomato, a pinch of red pepper flakes (optional) and salt to taste. Process into a smooth paste.
4. Heat 1 T oil (I used gingelly/untoasted sesame oil) in a small pan and fry the paste for a few minutes until it comes together.

Sheela offers many delicious ways to use this spread. The day I made this, I served it with dosas. The next day, I used the leftover spread in a sandwich with cream cheese and slices of fresh, ripe tomato. The tomato overload sandwich was such a perfect summer treat!

This goes to MBP: Less is More.


Some other delicious condiments with few ingredients:

Shyam's Quick Mango Avakkai (Green mangoes, Fenugreek seeds, Mustard seeds, Chilli powder)

Anjali's Lime Peel Pickles (Lime peel, Mustard seeds, Red chilli powder, Sambar powder)

Shilpa's Morambo (Mango/Pineapple, Sugar, Cardamom)

I'll be back in a few days with something sweet!

Caramelized Onion Bread

Today's few-ingredient recipe is a savory bread- Caramelized Onion Bread from Baking Bites.

Bread certainly is a miraculous food- powdery flour and plain ol' water coming together in a fluffy loaf with the help of millions of little bugs called Baker's yeast. Or our Indian breads- where you don't even need yeast. Just experienced hands that know how to turn out perfect flatbreads. In this recipe, Nic built in tremendous flavor right into the bread with the help of some beautiful browned onions. I halved the recipe to make a loaf of bread in a standard loaf pan, and used a mixture of bread flour and white whole wheat flour. Other than these two small variations, I followed Nic's recipe exactly.

Flour + Yeast + Onions + Sugar (tiny bit) + Pepper = Fragrant Caramelized Onion Bread


This bread was delicious! Next time, I would make sure that I cook the onions thoroughly...this time, the water left behind in the cooked onions turned into little pockets of pasty dough in the bread. It still tasted wonderful.

I sandwiched thick slices of this bread with some cheese, popped the sandwiches into the toaster oven for just a few minutes to let the cheese melt a little, and served them with chilled tomato soup (tomato puree, flavored olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, fresh basil, salt, pepper)


Browned onions have saved many a day in my kitchen. With no other vegetables on hand, pantry onions can be browned and used in so many ways- as a stuffing for grilled cheese or quesadillas, to dress up a simple pulao into a special meal, to add to vegetable stock to make a quick soup, and so on and on. Barbara has a very detailed tutorial on browning onions so as to coax the maximum flavor from them without turning them into charcoal.

This is yet another entry for MBP: Less is More.

If you post an entry for this event, please don't forget to drop me an e-mail telling me about it!

Coriander Rosti...

...or how to kick up brunch a notch!

Last weekend, an old college friend dropped in for brunch and I got a chance to try a bookmarked recipe from Sunita. Sunita's world is a place full of luscious food, images of nature and glimpses of her family life. A visit to her world never fails to cheer me up! Sunita's recipe for Coriander Rosti called for the simplest of ingredients and resulted in the most tempting crispy nuggets (you have to go look at her pictures for yourself).

My minor tweak: I used chipotle flakes instead of pepper to give the potatoes a smoky flavor. One could make many variations of these patties by using red pepper flakes or finely minced fresh chillies or crushed peppercorns as the spice.

Potatoes + Cilantro + Chipotle = Breakfast Potato Patties that will wake up your taste buds.


(Inspired by Sunita's World)
1. Wash two large (I used the huge baking potatoes sold here in the US) potatoes and prick them all over with a fork. Boil them until they are only partially cooked.
2. Peel and shred the potatoes.
3. Add 1 packed cup minced fresh cilantro, salt and chipotle flakes to taste. Mix together.
4. Form patties and place on a sprayed baking sheet. Spray the patties with a little more oil.
5. Bake at 400F for 30-40 minutes, flipping over once in between until the patties are golden and crispy.

These spicy patties are going to MBP: Less is More.


I served the patties with some delicious vegetable-egg squares. You could call them crustless quiche bites- inspired by Kalyn's recipe, which in turn is inspired by another.

My only modification was that I used spinach instead of chard. This is a delicious way to start the day off with a big helping of vegetables; the recipe is endlessly flexible. I have added artichoke hearts before with delicious results.

Both recipes- the rosti and the egg squares- are wonderful to serve on a brunch buffet because they are both bite-sized and portable.

Also on the brunch menu, some hot buttered toast!

Khari biscuits

A few days ago, I was idly leafing through a food magazine while waiting somewhere and a boldly highlighted recipe caught my eye. It claimed to be 2-ingredient guacamole. Ever since I decided on this Less-is-More theme, I have been very interested in few-ingredient recipes, and I read the recipe eagerly. Only to find that the two ingredients were 1 tub of refrigerated guacamole and 1 tub of refrigerated salsa. And the method stated: Mix them together. Viola! I stared at this incredible "recipe" for several moments, trying to decide whether to laugh or to cry. In the end, I just shook my head and flung the magazine aside.

When recipes call for "convenience products", it sometimes can go to such hilarious extremes. Other times, though, I have to admit that short-cuts do make it possible to make meals even when life gets too hectic for all meals to be made from scratch. There certainly are many times in my life when a jar of pasta sauce or a bottle of Thai curry paste has made the difference between eating a slice of greasy pizza or chopping up some odd vegetables and eating a quick home-cooked meal.

Sometimes, a convenience product provides a means to that sweet wistfulness called nostalgia. At least, that is the feeling that crept up when I saw Meera's recipe for Short-cut Khari Biscuits. They are a one-ingredient wonder, made from store-bought puff pastry. I loved loved loved these khari biscuits ("khari" means salty) in India, as an accompaniment to afternoon chai. Nothing but melt-in-the-mouth flaky pastry. Even as they sighed over the fat content of this pastry, my parents gave in and bought khari biscuits from the local bakery every now and then. These plain khari biscuits are the ones I love best, but a new bakery that my parents frequent also makes methi khari biscuits (tinged with kasuri methi or dried fenugreek) that are simply delicious.

This is only the second time in my whole life that I bought puff pastry. With lashings of fat separating whisper-thin layers of dough, puff pastry is as sinful as it gets. In the interest of not undoing all of the huffing and puffing in the gym, I use it only for making vegetable puffs (a la Monginis) once in a blue moon. And now, khari biscuits! I used the all-butter Trader Joe's brand here. When buying puff pastry, I would suggest avoiding brands that contain hydrogenated vegetable fats (even small amounts of trans fats are extremely unhealthy).

(Inspired by Enjoy Indian Food)
Preheat the oven to 400F. Defrost a sheet of puff pastry on a lightly floured surface. Roll it gently to make it slightly thinner. Cut out rectangular shapes with a sharp knife. Twist each rectangle into a bow (that is the shape that I remember from my childhood) and lay it on a greased baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. You may have to play around with oven temperatures and baking times to be able to get the inside of the biscuit baked before the outside gets too dark.

Meera's blog is a remarkable resource for recipes, both old favorites and unusual regional ones. This khari biscuit recipe is part of a category called American Desi- these are Indian favorites made using American supermarket ingredients.

This is yet another entry for MBP: Less is More.

Less is More: Vegetables

Getting your 5 (or more) a day is easy and delicious when you find the right recipes...that's what I have been learning from the bloggers.

First up, a gorgeous and couldn't-be-simpler subzi from Arundathi. A mild hint of cumin and mustard allows the fresh colors and flavors of spinach and corn to shine through. Arundathi tells us that this is a recipe she carried with her as a student, and it is a nice reminder that such recipes are worth going back to even after the bare-bones pantry days are gone.

Spinach + Corn + Cumin seeds + Mustard seeds = Spinach with Corn


I served this simple and delicious spinach-corn with rice and bhindi ni kadhi from Coffee. This okra kadhi is a superb recipe. I was almost tempted to eat the spicy stuffing with a spoon! My attempts at frying the stuffed okra were quite fruitless this time around; the stuffing leaked out :D Next time, I might bake the stuffed okra before making the kadhi.

Next on the list, an irresistible radish relish from Anita. The zingy flavors of radish are paired with bright lemon juice, with red chillies providing heat and color.

Daikon radish + Chillies + Tempering + Lemon juice = Mujj Chatin

I probably committed a cardinal sin in using peanut oil instead of mustard oil in this recipe. I don't have mustard oil in my pantry and when I look at the bottles of toasted sesame oil, raw sesame oil, peanut oil, and two kinds of olive oil in my pantry, I feel like I just can't bring home another one, hence the substitution. The mujj chatin, just like every other recipe from Anita's blog, was spot-on! It turned a dal-rice dinner into something mighty special.

We come to another spinach recipe- I'm getting serious about eating my greens! This one comes from Nandita. Her traditional lunch series is my absolute favorite, sharing those most precious recipes that make up the taste of home-cooked food. Nandita says, "This is a fine example of typical Tamil Brahmin cuisine, where less is always more and the flavours of the main ingredient are relied upon to the maximum without adding strong flavours like onion or garlic." Less is always more, you say? I had to try this recipe for my event!!

Spinach + Rice flour + Urad dal + Red chillies = Keerai Masiyal or mashed spinach.


Nandita got beautiful results with her traditional stone pot and mashing spoon; I managed with my heavy-duty le creuset casserole and a hand blender. My only tweak to the recipe: I added some lemon juice at the end. You have to taste this to believe it.

I served the mashed spinach with steamed rice and a sesame potato stir-fry from Latha

Potatoes + Sesame seeds + Red chilli powder + Turmeric + Tempering= Bangala Dumpa Vepudu.
Nothing more and nothing less! When I sat down to enjoy this meal, I could not take my eyes off the beautiful colors on my plate- the jade spinach and the golden potatoes.

Sure, ginger/garlic/ any one of a hundred different ingredients could be added to each of these recipes, but the truth is that they taste perfect just in this minimalist state. Needless to say, all these vegetables are being packed to-go, straight to MBP: Less is More.


Entries are already trickling in and I hope you will participate too! If you have a favorite few-ingredient recipe on your blog, leave a comment and I'll try and make it for this event.

*** *** ***

...and for dessert, another cupcake. The recipe comes from the ridiculously talented Hannah of BitterSweet.


Enjoy the weekend. Here's wishing my American friends a happy Fourth!

Onion Chutney: Less is More

Onions + Red Chillies + Tamarind = Zesty Onion Chutney.

TBC shared her mother's recipe for the simplest Onion Chutney. A few weeks ago, I made dosas and realized at the last possible minute that I had no coconut on hand for the accompanying chutney. That's when TBC's recipe came to the rescue!

My only tweak to the recipe was to add a bit of tamarind juice for some tang. This is how I made the onion chutney, inspired by TBC's recipe:

1. Heat some oil in a heavy skillet and add 3 coarsely chopped onions.
2. Saute for a few minutes until the edges start browning.
3. Add 2 dried red chillies and salt to taste.
4. Continue to saute until the onions are soft and browned.
5. Cool the mixture. Grind to a fine paste, adding 2-3 T tamarind juice along the way.

This post is my first entry to MBP: Less is More.


Piping hot dosas dipped into this sweet-tangy-hot chutney- it was an utterly delicious combination. The Budding Cook is a great resource for simple and tasty recipes like this one.

Onions are truly miraculous ingredients. They contain complex flavors hidden within all those layers, so when you cook with onions, you get a whole array of flavors for the price of one! More onion inspiration:

Some day I also hope to make IronStef's Onion Butter, a sweet and savory spread made from nothing but onions, salt, olive oil, butter (and slow heat). You have to read that post to see how Ironstef and Jack make onion butter from 12 lbs of onions!

And recently, I got to taste Pille's superb Onion and Orange salad- simply slices of oranges scattered with onions and peppercorns. I don't think I have even uttered the words "onions" and "orange" in the same sentence ever, but this dish truly works!

What's your favorite simple dish using onions?
I'll start by sharing mine: Mix thinly sliced red onion with white vinegar (yes, that cheapo kind more often used to clean clogged sinks), salt and red chilli powder (cayenne pepper). There you have it- a delicious relish for grilled foods. Like tandoori paneer. Mmmm...